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He was perfect. They were not.
She left the kitchen and grabbed her purse and car keys from the table beside the door. “Have a good day, Walker,” she told him. Danni often left him at her place.
/> “You too, Boo,” he told her reminding her of her place in his life. Matt’s little sister. The boys, her brothers and cousins had always called her Boo. She walked out onto the front porch ready to spit nails, she was so pissed at him. The cabin door swung shut so hard the windows rattled but she didn’t care.
She stomped to the driveway and climbed inside her truck, slamming that door too. Then she gripped the steering wheel. Hell, maybe she did need a date. A long night of hot, meaningless sex. Then to hell with the feelings of guilt in the morning. Maybe she wouldn’t think about Walker Wild so much and what was inside those jeans of his.
Danni wasn’t the type of girl to sleep around. Jackson and Andy were the only two men she had ever been with. She was twenty-six. She had been in a dry spell recently. A long, painful dry spell because of Walker Wild.
She backed out onto the street in front of her road and burned rubber on the asphalt as she took off to her grandfather’s garage. She repaired trucks, cars and sometimes even motorcycles during the day. It was a dirty job, but she had learned young, working with her grandpa how to fix a motor. She loved her day job. She liked her night job because she got to be with her dad and Seth at the pub.
**
At the end of the day, grease beneath her fingers Danni was tired. She had hurt her shoulder too. It ached like crazy right now preventing Danni from lifting her arm. She didn’t know how she would carry trays tonight at Ike’s.
Danni stood beneath the water and let the heat penetrate her body, washing away the dirt and the grime from the garage. She soaked her fingers in bleach to get rid of the blackness that came with working on cars. Then she shampooed her hair and washed her body. Afterwards, her shoulder still ached but she towel-dried herself hoping some ibuprofen would ease her pain.
Walking naked to the chest of drawers, she grabbed a thong. Her father had his servers wearing tight t-shirts and short shorts. The underwear, she usually liked to wear would show in her work shorts. The hot pink, silky fabric matched her bra and made her feel sexy. She slipped on the bra and adjusted the cups so that her big, C sized breasts were resting comfortably in the demi-cup bra showing a lot of cleavage when she put on her work shirt.
Then she slipped on the shorts that made her legs look like they went on for miles. She put lotion on and slipped on her cowboy boots. Her cut-off, shorts couldn’t be any shorter. Her Dad took advantage of pretty girls working at the pub including his own daughter. One day, she would be brave enough to publish her work then maybe she could just be a writer like she wanted to be because then she would have to tell her dad that she couldn’t work for him anymore and she wouldn’t miss it.
Until then she waited on handsy men and drunk women wanting to get picked up in her dad’s bar by one of the locals in her small town of Sherwood. Danni thought maybe it was his way of getting her out of the cabin on Friday and Saturday night. It worked too, otherwise she was content to stay home in her secluded place because most nights Walker appeared at some point which meant she got to spend time with him.
No one could fix a car better than Danni Hatfield. She could make a motor sing with a socket wrench and a hammer. Just kidding about the hammer, sometimes. Danni had worked nine hours at the garage then kissed her eighty-year-old grandfather goodbye at six o’clock before heading home to shower before she would sling drinks at the bar. She was just as good at slinging drinks.
Danni was friendly and charming. Everyone liked her and knew her from the garage as well as the bar. She went to church on Sunday and was didn’t talk back to her parents. Danni was a good girl.
The pub where she worked for her dad had been in her father’s family for sixty years sitting on the Ohio River in Sherwood. Some small local businesses were also somewhat successful but otherwise the, men and women who didn’t want to leave their little, town, drove to other places to find gainful employment.
Danni was grateful that she had her two jobs in her own little, town. She had her own home. Some weren’t quite as lucky as she was. She had her writing that she kept private except for Seth and Walker.
Walker Wild was driving her crazy. This wasn’t like her first love with Jackson. This was mature and needy. She wanted him in the worst way, but he was holding tight to his convictions. Sure, she had been out with other men in the years since Jackson left Sherwood to find himself.
I can’t take you with me, baby. I can barely support myself, you know. Danni still remembered his painful words. She remembered how easily he had left her. He walked away without looking back. She knew she poured her heart out to Walker while he sat in a prison cell. She wondered how it would be when he came home but he never mentioned those letters, not one. It was as if time had never passed and she hadn’t told him just how heartbroken she really, was.
Danni slipped her tight, hot pink, low cut Ike’s shirt over her head and headed out the front door of her cabin. She got in the old Ford and started her baby up. She caressed the dashboard with a gentle hand and backed onto the street to head to town.
It was starting to get cool. She hadn’t even grabbed a hoodie like she normally would have. The trees hung over the two-lane road and created a canopy in spring and summer. Fall had changed them to red, gold and green. The remnants were scattered across the asphalt creating a blanket of vibrant colors that Danni drove across, in a hurry to get to Ike’s because her dad made her start time seven thirty which left little time between when she left the garage and needed to be at the pub.
Behind the building, a back deck ran forty feet along the water’s edge, so patrons could sit outside, drink and eat while gazing at the beautiful river and scenery surrounding them. Boaters could tie up to the dock and a few diehards were there right now even though the evening was cooler, Danni noticed as she pulled into the parking lot which was full too.
She parked beneath the lamppost near the edge of the road and ran across the lot to avoid the chill in the air. Throwing open the door, she heard the music, saw the people and heard the roar of the crowd watching the baseball game on the televisions scattered throughout the place.
Danni went to the bar where she kissed her dad. “How’s my girl?” He asked.
“Doing well. Business is booming tonight.”
“It is. How’s your Mom?” He asked what he always did every time he saw her. He missed her mother.
She chuckled. Her mother and father had been divorced for two years and hadn’t gotten over each other but were too stubborn to admit that they had made a mistake.
“She’s the same, Daddy.” Then she rolled her eyes at him. Simon huffed at his daughter.
He might ask about her every Friday night that he saw his daughter, but he wouldn’t go see her. All he had to do was tell her mother that he missed her. Her brother, Seth peeked through the window. Same, wild dark hair, like her and their father who kept his short to avoid the curls that her brother and her had.
“Shorty,” he hollered.
Danni rolled her eyes at him too. She was five feet ten not short at all for a woman but compared to her six brothers, none were shorter than six feet three she guessed she was short.
